Ford Transit Custom injector problems-help please!

To cut a long story short got a 2018 double cab as our main vehicle earlier this yearend in June went into limp mode and had 4 new injectors. In July the same problem and replaced 1 injector. This weekend the same happened again with 6 bikes, 5 of us and in the middle of nowhere.
each time we are offered either a small car or van with 3 seats followed by a an argument and then something slightly more suitable. This time we have ended up with a 7 seater Smax, so no chance of marrying bikes.
Some questions;
-Is this a problem on the Transit and have others got it sorted in the end.
-Should I be able to insist on a suitable replacement hire van?
-Can I insist on a replacement for the van if it carries on happening?
It is a pain in the arse each time and we are losing faith in the van. We only managed 250 miles between garage visits this time.
Any general advice on a way to deal with this would be appreciated.

I’ve had an injector replaced on my 2018 dciv. Mine was apparently over fuelling and causing premature thinning of the oil so it would be asking for a service at between 4 and 5 thousand. The service manager was a sound bloke who openly admitted there was a known problem with the oem injectors, at that point I suggested that all four should be changed but he said that wasnt possible as they hadn’t all shown a fault. Are they fitting the “new injectors”. And no I wouldn’t be putting up with that shit, the dealer must be aware that this really isnt a good situation.

-Should I be able to insist on a suitable replacement hire van?

You can insist all you want but there has to be something available to give you. Transit size double cab vans aren’t especially common amongst hire fleets.

You can search yourself maybe and steer them towards a vendor for something suitable. But you’ll probably struggle to come up with anything from regular car/van hire places.

I don’t believe they have to give you anything for certain. I kicked up a real fuss after some dick ran in to our estate car 10 days before a cornwall trip, we needed a big estate with a roof rack as a replacement to match ours (dog in the back/top box etc), I ended up with a ford ranger but it was very very hard work, it was only the threat of us having to cancel our holiday and claiming for that as well that seemed to gee them up.

OP, is that the euro 6 2.0 engine? If so, I understand this is a known problem (as wrightyson describes).

yep it is the Euro 6 one. It has been with the main dealer longer than us.

And also had them all replaced so shouldn’t be an OEM problem.
Said that they are booking in for the 10th October for warranty repairs at the moment

Change dealer. I wouldn’t be having that ****! May also be time to get in touch with ford direct.

I’ve just done a quick Google and the interwebs is littered with threads about injectors on the euro 6 engine. One also mentioned an exhaust clean message which I actually got the other day so I’m now waiting for another failure….

Just checked and only one dealer local. Also it is not the dealer with crap hire car but Ford/AA.

I’ve read that there was a bad batch of injectors which have been failing on 2018 vans. I’ve also read that the early warning sign is the engine surging, not that it helps much to know you’re about to be without your van.

We’ve got a late 2018 DCIV Sport and so far up to 6k miles. What mileage was yours at when it went?

I think I’d be considering rejecting it and getting your money back. Have you had it more, or less than 6 months? This might help. https://www.thecarexpert.co.uk/rejecting-a-car/

even if over 6 months, the fact it’s been back three times in a couple of months, and it being a know fault suggests it wouldn’t be too hard to claim a defect at the time of purchase.

I work for a certain large UK telecoms company.
Our division recently took delivery of new transits, can’t remember the exact numbers but most have this injector issue!
You have my sympathies, thankfully I don’t have a Transit!

Mine went at just over 18000 miles. I have had ford head office in contact so should be interesting to hear their views

Yep, Ford has had a bad batch of Injectors, our delivery van has been affected. Unfortunately, there is a backlog/waiting list to have the new injectors fitted as so many vans have been affected. >:-(

@mercuryrev mine is one of the last 2018 sport models before the facelift (halo led lights) my injector wasn’t picked up the first time via the oil thinning as they didn’t put it on test. They basically went on about diesel being pre injected on ignition then crank etc and blamed the thinning of the oil on that, that happened at about 5k if I remember. It then happened again at about 9.5k literally on its way for 1st year service so I kicked off a bit. They put it on test and found one injector was faulty and overfuelling each time which worsened the oil thinning.

Hmmmm, mine was probably built mid to late 2018, as it was registered in January 2019. It was the last Sport DCIV I could find before Ford upped the bhp to 185.

It’s only done 6000 miles so far, so sounds like I best keep everything crossed! Off on a big road trip in it early next year too…..

The new shape came out way before that? Is yours the facelift. I’ve had mine 15 months now and the reason it was cheap was due to the new model being all over the forecourt. Or has the engine changed?

Pre 2019 vans do have injector problems, but nothing more so than any other manufacturer.

The big problem is there was a bad batch of injectors this year, which have gone in new engines, and also in to the parts supply chain. When Ford realised the extent of the problem, all affected vehicles still not delivered to customers were to be held until a full new set of injectors were fitted, and all dealer parts stock was recalled with any injector not fitted to be returned immediately.
Any affected vehicle in the known production dates now presented with a failed injector has to have a full set of injectors fitted.

The knock on effect of this, is there is now a substantial backlog of injector orders. I’ve personally only done a single injector on Transits, despite us maintaining several hundred of them, but I’m aware there’s currently around a 2-3 week waiting time for injector orders, with only VOR orders being accepted, so that means orders are only being delivered to dealers in the order of vehicles being declared VOR, and dealers can’t stock pile any.
I’d imagine that even once Ford get on top of the current VOR issue, there will be a full recall for all the other affected vehicles, so supply issues are very likely to continue for another few months, as you can’t just magic up thousands of injectors in a few weeks.

And just to add to the Transit/custom recall list, Ford’s latest oil dilution recall (yet more improved regen algorithms, along with limp home mode if oil life is exceeded, and removing the ability to reset oil life without a computer) has been released to owners. It’s been active for a couple months, but letters are finally being sent out to owners, so expect dealer waiting times to increase even more!

@mc so will I be eligible for a full set then? As I say I requested that at the time but they wouldn’t have it. As an aside I’ve never reached over 36 mpg even on a steady 4 hour run. Is that acceptable?

@wrightyson, I’d very much doubt it as your van would have been prior to the bad batch.

The reason they won’t generally change an entire set, is the injectors are randomised of the production line, so your original injectors could quite easily have been produced several days apart. Previous recalls where they’ve known precise production batches, have involved physically checking injectors for batch/serial numbers.

Whatever has gone wrong at Continental this year has obviously been major, and is more than just a small batch tolerance issue.

36mpg I wish we could get anywhere near that. We have done 10000 miles ans so far only managed 30.6 average and thats after Ford fiddled with it at 7000 miles earlier this year when we were averaging 28 mpg. 170hp Auto Tourneo

And for reference, I’ve just checked and the affected van production dates are 18/5/19 to 12/7/19.

http://www.etis.ford.com/vehicleRegSelector.do

Stick your reg or VIN into that and should show up outstanding recalls etc. Recently had a 2yr/10k mile service on my 67-plate euro6-engined Transit and it had 2 recalls outstanding (the oil dilution as mentioned by @mc above, and something else I can’t remember). Both were mentioned without me asking when I booked the van in with Ford main dealer, but worth knowing yourself all the same.

Edit: for reference, 130 DCiV H1L2 130 getting 34-36 solo and 23-25 towing a muckle big caravan.

@Tracey 30/31 is my standard mpg, the 36 was on a nice steady run. You’ve got to stay out of boost range to get that though. Mine is also the h1 l2 170 bhp flavour.

Thanks, just had a look and ours has missed a recall for the oil dilution. Will have a word with them once they have sorted out the camper gearbox.

Tracy, that mpg sounds wrong. We have a 67 plate H1 L2 Tourneo Custom (170hp auto) and have an average of 37.2 over 29000 miles of mixed town/A-road/motorway driving.

The oil dilution issue is not down to the injectors but the way Ford add the Adblue to the engine. Rather than injecting it into the exhaust the for some bizarre reason decided to inject it into the cylinders. This washes the bores and thus dilutes the oil. Ours was doing about 6000 miles between services due to this (thankfully all paid for under warranty so far) but after the last update last year has done nearly 13000 without flagging a warning.

We have had the high pressure fuel rail replaced under warranty but the injectors have been fine. Also the timing belt pulleys on the 2017 vans were known to have the spring fail and were replaced if rattling on idle was reported. Ford refused to issue a recall for this and you have to complain about a rattle to get it sorted. As it is a wet belt it is a partial engine strip and 3 days to sort out.

Transit injectors are a massive problem. ALL our transits at work have had to have them done. I’m on a few Motorhome FB groups and there is literally a post every day about someone having issues with them.

It must be costing ford a fortune and I cant believe they are still putting vans out with the issue. My Brother in Law was due to pick up his brand new lease Custom last week, and its been delayed as they wanted to replace the injectors before it went out. Two week delay.

its the main reason why I bought a motohome based on a Ducato chassis.

@jonm81 adblu goes no where near the internals of the engine, it gets injected into the DPF/SCR cat (specifically after the DPF and before the SCR). Adblu inside in an engine will very quickly destroy it due to corrosion.
The oil dilution is due to diesel, and is something that affects nearly all current diesels. It’s just Ford struggled to find a good compromise that works well under varying circumstances, resulting in lots of regens and excess oil dilution.

It must be costing ford a fortune and I cant believe they are still putting vans out with the issue. My Brother in Law was due to pick up his brand new lease Custom last week, and its been delayed as they wanted to replace the injectors before it went out.

the 2019 update vans (inc the new 185bhp) have “all new injectors” apparently (amongst other slight changes) but I don’t know whether you can actually get one yet.

Mc- I thought it was strange but it was what the main dealer tech told me when I was bitching about it last time it was in. According to the guy some Mazdas have the same oil dilution problem.

My 2010 Mazda 6 had the same issue, it would inject unused diesel in to the sump. As I said before though my oil thinning was exacerbated by one injector overfuelling on ignition and crank.

Ford have now agreed to replace all the injectors but there is the dreaded back order. They have no explanation as to why they keep going in the same van!

It does sound like you’ve been unlucky enough to get some of the bad batch when they were replaced the first time.

I’m just amazed that something that’s “caused by a bad batch”, genuinely was caused by a bad batch! That never usually happens

@ wrightyson I think we’re (me) getting our facelifts mixed up! Mine is the last big facelift, with the redesigned front end and dashboard. It has the same 2 litre engine though.

Looking at the build dates affected we should be ok. We live and so bought ours, in France and their customer service is an acquired taste….

Just been handed a letter dated from the 9th September. Don’t know how it got missed. My van has got another plug in recall to **** about with oil sensor algorithms apparently, i thought that had been done previously so not sure if there has been another one programmed?

Well the van is back and has 4 correct injectors. Apparently Ford have identified the serial numbers on the dodgy injectors so now should be all good. this explains the multiple failures. Apparently one van had 9 dodgy injectors fitted.
Hopefully all sorted!! You have to be optimistic.

Do they use Bosch or Delphi injectors?
A friend works for Delphi and has told me about problems they’ve had before.

Mine is going in today (68 plate pre-facelift DCIV) for a software update recall
I might change the oil and filter as a precaution too as I dont hold with the 2 years/30000 mile oil change interval